Select Sunday > Sunday Web Site Home > Spiritual Reflections > Discussion Questions
 Discussion Questions
Twentieth Sunday of Ordinary Time
August 19, 2018
Anne Osdieck

First Reading
Proverbs 9:1-6

1. Is Wisdom female or male? Does she invite or demand? What hungers does she satisfy? What is the difference between knowledge and wisdom? Does the latter help us in difficult situations?

2. Our food becomes part of us and helps us grow and repair our cells. This reading talks about a meal that brings us to the fullness of life. If we eat at Wisdom’s table will we know the things of God?


Second Reading

Ephesians 5:15-20

1. “Be filled with the Spirit, addressing one another in psalms and hymns and spiritual songs.” Outside the liturgical setting what are some ways you can show love for your neighbors other than “greeting them with songs”?

2. The reading tells us to give thanks always and everywhere. If giving thanks for painful situations is too difficult, what might be some other ways to handle them?


Gospel:

John 6:51-58

1. When people love each other they want to be together. Explain “Whoever eats my flesh remains in me and I in him” in this light. Stating it many different ways, how many times did Jesus suggest that the crowd “eat this bread” in Sunday’s Gospel? If we eat at the table of the Lord will he give himself to us and give us eternal life?

2. Pope Francis commented on the Gospel in which learned Jews listening to Jesus argue among themselves, asking: “How can this man give us his flesh to eat?” According to Francis can we correctly interpret the Gospel purely through the intellect without regard to love and beauty?

They are the great ideologues. … These ideologues cut off the road of love, and also that of beauty. … All a matter of intellect! And when ideology enters into the Church, when ideology enters into our understanding of the Gospel, no [authentic] comprehension is [possible]. The ideologues falsify the gospel. Every ideological interpretation, wherever it comes from—from [whatever side]—is a falsification of the Gospel. And these ideologues—as we have seen in the history of the Church—end up being intellectuals without talent, ethicists without goodness—and let us not so much as mention beauty, of which they understand nothing.

An Attitude of Gratitude
Fourth paragraph

Anne Osdieck
Art by Martin Erspamer, OSB
from Religious Clip Art for the Liturgical Year (A, B, and C). This art may be reproduced only by parishes who purchase the collection in book or CD-ROM form. For more information go http://www.ltp.org